CAMELLIA BONSAI

I got this camellia form the Mobile Botanical Gardens plant sale several years ago and have been slowly working it into a bonsai. This is a pretty unique variety, "Curly Egao", in that it is a contorted cultivar. Being contorted, it lends itself well to bonsai as branches already grow with lots of movement in them and they naturally droop, not so much that you could say that it is weeping, but they are not as upright as others.

I am still working on getting into a bonsai pot, it had the typical nursery pot roots and I have been slowly reducing them down and making them shallower. We"ll take another look at them this Spring, which is looking like it will be February this year in the Heart of Dixie.

The warm winter (no nights at or less than freezing yet) has been really good for the camellias. They are blooming profusely all over the Heart of Dixie. Curly is, too, and I just wanted to share, so, here she is:

The flowers are mostly on the inside as I gave it a trim a little late in the summer. Camellias are a lot like azaleas in that you have to be careful how late you prune because if you do it too late, you might just be pruning off the next season's flowers. Speaking of the the flowers, this will have to be a large bonsai as the flowers are on the large side.